James has a little tale he likes to tell about me: during our first year together, I took him out for a romantic birthday dinner. We were both wearing our very nicest clothes and smiling a lot at each other - and then something happened that revealed the real me: the waiter gave us the dessert menus. Unable to choose from the list of delisheses, we decided to get two different dishes and share.
We both attacked James' pudding with gusto, making great gulping grunts of delight. Then, we turned our attention to the scrumptious little morsel waiting patiently on my side of the table. "Mmmmm," I swooned, "that's delicious." James, his spoon poised, waited for his invitation to dig in. "That's just outstanding," I muttered between lip licking. "Mmm mmm mmmm MMMMM." By now, he was looking a little agitated, wondering when I was going to slide the plate toward him for his share of the dessert - a moment which, as it turned out, simply didn't arrive. "Gosh, that was good," I said as I finished the last mouthful. That was when James realised that I had never had any intention of sharing; that I had only pretended to support his idea of going halves on each serving so that I could eat most of his dessert and all of mine, too.
No, it's not a flattering story; but it's one that illustrates the seriousness with which I take my food; a trait I appear to have passed on to my daughter.
When Leya was introduced to solids two weeks ago, I was warned that the going might be tough. "She'll pull all kinds of funny faces," the nurse told me. "She might gag, but you must just push on through," advised my sister (counsel I could thoroughly identify with, as many's the time I have felt positively ill because of the sheer volume I have ingested, yet, determined to continue until the last mouthful is down the hatch, I push on with the perseverance of a woman in a Nike ad).
As it turned out, we need not have worried. I had scarcely mixed up Leya's cereal when she seized the spoon from me and all but swallowed it whole. She has taken to food in a manner that does her maternal family - a group of people who think nothing of going out for coffee and cake seconds after the breakfast dishes have been cleared - most proud.
In fact, such is her enthusiasm that no matter how quickly I tried to feed her, I just can't shovel that cereal in fast enough. Hence, the establishment of my two-spoon production line - while Leya is munching down on one spoon, the second is already loading up the next mouthful. It's not actually necessary to present one spoon after the other; she quite likes having both proffered at the same time, so she can go from one to the other, her head darting quickly from side to side as if watching a tennis match on a miniature court.
Even then, it sometimes happens that proceedings do not take place at the speed she would like. At such times, Leya finds one of the blobs of cereal which has fallen to her bib, and sucks them off. Sometimes, she tries to eat her bowl. With an excitement that would not be out of place at a Roman feast, she happily squelches the cereal into her hair, mascaras it onto her eyelashes and mashes it between her toes. I, too, get covered in flying rice flakes, until I am covered in a crispy caul of cereal. Yesterday was a particularly messy day: Just as I brought Spoon Number Two, fully loaded, up to her mouth, a giant sneeze from Leya made the cereal fly even further. Jackson Pollack could not have been a better job.
The last stage of the meal involves removing my little girl, now covered in her own food coating like a breaded chicken schnitzel, from her Bumbo and placing her in the bath. This is no easy task, for two reasons: I'm still trying to avoid the giant gobs of cereal (a pointless exercise, really, as one or two extra dabs on my clothes will make no difference) and, in addition, Leya's chunksome thighs tend to get stuck in the legholes. As a result, this is usually a two-person job: one holds her seat down while the other gives her a hearty yank. Going it alone often means that baby and Bumbo arise as one solid unit.
There's no doubt that mealtimes are the ultimate nightmare for anyone who's even mildly tactile defensive. But they're also one of the greatest comedic events of my day.
We both attacked James' pudding with gusto, making great gulping grunts of delight. Then, we turned our attention to the scrumptious little morsel waiting patiently on my side of the table. "Mmmmm," I swooned, "that's delicious." James, his spoon poised, waited for his invitation to dig in. "That's just outstanding," I muttered between lip licking. "Mmm mmm mmmm MMMMM." By now, he was looking a little agitated, wondering when I was going to slide the plate toward him for his share of the dessert - a moment which, as it turned out, simply didn't arrive. "Gosh, that was good," I said as I finished the last mouthful. That was when James realised that I had never had any intention of sharing; that I had only pretended to support his idea of going halves on each serving so that I could eat most of his dessert and all of mine, too.
No, it's not a flattering story; but it's one that illustrates the seriousness with which I take my food; a trait I appear to have passed on to my daughter.
When Leya was introduced to solids two weeks ago, I was warned that the going might be tough. "She'll pull all kinds of funny faces," the nurse told me. "She might gag, but you must just push on through," advised my sister (counsel I could thoroughly identify with, as many's the time I have felt positively ill because of the sheer volume I have ingested, yet, determined to continue until the last mouthful is down the hatch, I push on with the perseverance of a woman in a Nike ad).
As it turned out, we need not have worried. I had scarcely mixed up Leya's cereal when she seized the spoon from me and all but swallowed it whole. She has taken to food in a manner that does her maternal family - a group of people who think nothing of going out for coffee and cake seconds after the breakfast dishes have been cleared - most proud.
In fact, such is her enthusiasm that no matter how quickly I tried to feed her, I just can't shovel that cereal in fast enough. Hence, the establishment of my two-spoon production line - while Leya is munching down on one spoon, the second is already loading up the next mouthful. It's not actually necessary to present one spoon after the other; she quite likes having both proffered at the same time, so she can go from one to the other, her head darting quickly from side to side as if watching a tennis match on a miniature court.
Even then, it sometimes happens that proceedings do not take place at the speed she would like. At such times, Leya finds one of the blobs of cereal which has fallen to her bib, and sucks them off. Sometimes, she tries to eat her bowl. With an excitement that would not be out of place at a Roman feast, she happily squelches the cereal into her hair, mascaras it onto her eyelashes and mashes it between her toes. I, too, get covered in flying rice flakes, until I am covered in a crispy caul of cereal. Yesterday was a particularly messy day: Just as I brought Spoon Number Two, fully loaded, up to her mouth, a giant sneeze from Leya made the cereal fly even further. Jackson Pollack could not have been a better job.
The last stage of the meal involves removing my little girl, now covered in her own food coating like a breaded chicken schnitzel, from her Bumbo and placing her in the bath. This is no easy task, for two reasons: I'm still trying to avoid the giant gobs of cereal (a pointless exercise, really, as one or two extra dabs on my clothes will make no difference) and, in addition, Leya's chunksome thighs tend to get stuck in the legholes. As a result, this is usually a two-person job: one holds her seat down while the other gives her a hearty yank. Going it alone often means that baby and Bumbo arise as one solid unit.
There's no doubt that mealtimes are the ultimate nightmare for anyone who's even mildly tactile defensive. But they're also one of the greatest comedic events of my day.
No comments:
Post a Comment